Your Soul.

Somewhere, sometime, somehow, you may become impregnated, by a word, a sound, a sight, or an idea. This seed may never amount to anything. Or it may take root, and begin to grow. If it does, you will be on a journey, which is a process, very much like a pregnancy.

Given the right conditions, the seed will flourish and consume much of the life you would have been having, if it were not for this other life, growing inside you.

At some point, if you live a reasonably healthy life, are reasonably pure of heart, and are reasonably ready, the seed will - quite suddenly - stop being a seed, and will be born. This will accompany a magnificent insight, illumination experience, or transcendent revelation. Still, the process is not complete...

Like any baby creature, it must be nurtured, protected, nourished and loved. Many years may pass, until, once again, if conditions are right, the child will mature.

The moment that newly mature soul leaves the body, flies free into the cosmos, and becomes everything, is a moment that will never leave you. It is, in actual fact, rebirth.

This is what is metaphorically referred-to as eternal life. This soul is you, but without the trappings you always associated with being 'you'. It will have no identity, or personality, as you know it. But it will be forever unique, regardless.

Your job done, your purpose fulfilled, you will live out the rest of your physical life. Your soul has departed, but since it is now everything, everywhere, always, it will continue to reside within. It will remain, it will endure, it will be.

Who are you, really? What point of reference could you use to be sure?

It may happen that someday you will sense a hidden aspect, like feeling an unexpected draft in a room that hints at further exploration. But then again, maybe it was nothing after all...

Sometimes, however, things like this are only forgotten by one part of the mind. You may sense a hollow tinge in the morning newsfeed or radio program, or [if you are lucky] you may hear it in yourself. Why would anybody care about other people knowing who and what they are? Who is anybody? Just what the hell is behind all this anyway?

At some point, if you live a reasonably honest life, have mastered and simplified your environment, and have the courage to pursue potentially reckless ideas, you will find - rather suddenly - that appearances are not essential qualities. Finally most human ambitions fall into place! How far does this rabbit hole go?

If I replace my car door, is it still my car? How about the engine, now the frame? What about me? Am I the same person I see in childhood pictures? My mind and body have undergone complete transformation, what is left that is permanently me? The mind flounders like the organized cacophany of a symphony until WHAM the cymbals clash, and there follows only silence, nothing.

Pregnant nothingness. Being, perfectly and evenly distributed, taking on and shedding forms like so many bubbles in the wake of a wave, never always changing. You look down and inside and see the same process in you as in the grass and airplane and moldering sidewalk.

Like a plant uncurling from it's seed husk you finally begin to understand that it was being curled up inside the shell, being trapped in a feedback loop, that created the illusions that until recently you tried desperately tried to resolve. The echo chamber reduces from compulsion to skill, and the camel becomes a child.

Living now, like a tree walking and taking nourishment from all forms, you find yourself curious and exploring the possibilities of this pregnant void.

This topic is either a load of BS or just over my head. So I'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt while I exercise an uncharacteristic level of humility.

What does it mean to have a damaged soul? And in what sense do you use the word "love"? It seems to run contradictory to basically every definition I have ever heard when you say that a soldier's love is to wage war and rape.

I am interested because for once, I cannot think of an arbitrarily argumentative position to take (which is my modus operandi). Indulge me?

Apologies for not being clear. The request was directed at deathmetal but if you can clarify anything that I asked about, I would appreciate it.

I don't take your posts for granted, even when they seem at first like a load of pseudo-theological wankery. I know that is an egotistical reaction just because I don't understand what is being said and my mind would like to believe that, therefore, it must be a bunch of garbage and couldn't possibly make sense. I am prepared to be humbled.

May I ask you some personal questions? It is for my curiosity but not off-topic; I want to clarify your reaction to this post. Are you a religious (or `spiritual`) person? Do you accept, or believe in, any kind of theology? Are you a materialist/positivist? I suppose what I want to ask is if you put any store in the mystical.

To see things with a critical eye can be useful sometimes, but it has in our times turned into an insane obssession. We are not at our core rational beings. If you approach something with the intent, or even mindset, of deconstruction then that is all you will gain. This is, in my opinion, one of the big reasons why moderns can read something like the Bible and only have the most superficial nitpicks stand out. It isnt an exclusively modern phenomenon, but it has never before been so universal and so dogmatic. Do not merely approach without preconception, for that is impossible for most. Approach instead with a positive bias, let it convince you. Once you do that, the mystical makes sense. It is not for reading, but for knowing.

May I ask you some personal questions? It is for my curiosity but not off-topic; I want to clarify your reaction to this post. Are you a religious (or `spiritual`) person? Do you accept, or believe in, any kind of theology? Are you a materialist/positivist? I suppose what I want to ask is if you put any store in the mystical.

To see things with a critical eye can be useful sometimes, but it has in our times turned into an insane obssession. We are not at our core rational beings. If you approach something with the intent, or even mindset, of deconstruction then that is all you will gain. This is, in my opinion, one of the big reasons why moderns can read something like the Bible and only have the most superficial nitpicks stand out. It isnt an exclusively modern phenomenon, but it has never before been so universal and so dogmatic. Do not merely approach without preconception, for that is impossible for most. Approach instead with a positive bias, let it convince you. Once you do that, the mystical makes sense. It is not for reading, but for knowing.

My personal position varies so much that it is practically useless to describe it at any given time. Most of my arguments are never my own; they belong to other people, and I extrapolate their logic to an absurd extreme just to see if it holds up to other's criticism.

The Jungians would describe my decision making process as a that of a "synthesist".

I am not "spiritual" in any technical sense. I am a "physicalist" in some technical sense.

My critical approach is impossible to curb. I am, essentially, THE devil's advocate, to the extent of self-contradiction, and I find joy in that.

I do, however, worship the "absolutes" of our universe. The speed of light; the structure of a growing plant; the number 1; a flowing river; the cycles of our planet and its moon; the ratio of gravitational attraction between galaxies and the speed of universal expansion. It is a Lovecraftian sort of worship, but the term applies nonetheless.

I hope this satisfies your curiosity but it is mostly useless information.

Generally speaking, I prefer to speak of one's "heart" to one's "soul." This is because the soul is thought of as an existent, viable object, even if only a metaphysical one. Whereas "heart," in this context, is thought of less as an object and more as a vehicle by which some other process occurs. My heart yearns, my heart swells, my heart breaks. I find this to be more relevant to the concept's nature by a very long shot.

Whether soul, heart, or whatever else you wish to call it, it is both the most resilient and the most fragile thing you will ever possess. As you unwittingly implied, crow, there is nothing in the universe, physical or conceptual or otherwise, that can damage this thing unless you consent to it. The only one who can take your heart/soul from you is yourself. I say you unwittingly implied this due to this concept: "...that newly mature soul leaves the body, flies free into the cosmos, and becomes everything..." What can be more immutable than, well... everything? Totality? The universe as whole - not just in matter, but also in movement, time, change? The totality of existence, from beginning to end - or, if there are no such things, then all of eternity? What is more immense? What can one possibly do, to dilute eternity?

So then your soul, or whatever, is your only infinite sword in whatever war you choose to wage. But it is also incredibly vulnerable. It is a tool not of steel but of glass; it does not suffer slight damages. Any fracture is traumatic. You cannot take a minor hit to your soul. And the sharper your edge, and the more capable your wielding of it, the more damaging a blow to it becomes. It is only a hardened heart that bears its pain lightly, because only such a heart can both accept the knowledge that such injury was allowed by oneself, and simultaneously shrug it off, thinking "business as usual."

To see things with a critical eye can be useful sometimes, but it has in our times turned into an insane obssession.

True. Very sad. And this exists at every level, really. Authority apparently only exists to be mistrusted and disobeyed/abused, depending on which side of it you lie. Showing disrespect to others seems to be the only way to efficiently gain respect from your peers. Hierarchy is an intrinsically offensive concept. The nature of God changes based on what people want out of him. Relativism is the only absolute truth, whether in physics, anthropology, morality, religion, or taste.

My personal position varies so much that it is practically useless to describe it at any given time. Most of my arguments are never my own; they belong to other people... I do, however, worship the "absolutes" of our universe.

If you worship the absolute, why would your personal positions vary at all? I would suggest you simply choose a position, on any given issue, at whatever time it becomes relevant, and then stick with it. It doesn't have to be the position you like most, the one that is the most reasonable, or the correct one. Make your choice randomly if you need to, so long as you do choose. And then defend the hell out of it. Even if on some level you feel your choice of position was incorrect. Choose one, and then force yourself into believing it. Slay all heretics who dare blaspheme against it. Not literally, of course

This would be a path, not a destination in and of itself. Your attitude is one I recognize intimately. Because of this, you strike me as having reached the point in your particular approach where it can no longer serve you. You now need to graduate to the next level, which would be commitment in your case. Which will become loyalty. Which will become, and laugh at this if you like, faith.

My apologies if this insults you. But I do stand by it, even if it does.

Just because I worship absolutes does not mean I must try to meld myself with them, or emulate them. I have no illusion about my place as a lucky little acausal burst of infection in the veins of the universe. It is my place to question and become; to my existence I owe that much. Carl Sagan said that humans are the universe trying to know itself; I have yet to hear a more elegant description of our species.

To say that my contradictory tendencies have carried me as far as their limit presupposes both a goal and a limit.

To change my mind is to become something new; I may as well wake up as another person every day. On the cellular level, I am not even the same person now that I was born as. This brings me greater joy than anything else. Actually, compared to the experience of a discovery of such magnitude that it erases my previous opinions and positions, nothing else brings me joy; I would need another word for it.

I am familiar with the importance of melding one's self with something greater than the self; for some reason or another, I never found it personally important. Or, maybe I'm wrong; maybe I'm already dutifully dedicated to a position of non-dedication. "The only constant is change" kind of thing. Maybe it is just arrogance; I am still not matured fully. At any rate I am not looking for any higher purpose or meaning; maybe I have an intellectual curiosity about what drives people to attain those things.